When I was a child, I was often confused about what was not to be done, and why. My older sister just told me these things were the unspoken rules of society, and I would figure them out.

I used to think that the Unspoken Rules were probably written down somewhere, on a big plaque with a gilded frame, maybe on a wall in city hall, which was an impressive building. Or maybe there was only one copy of the Unspoken Rules, and it was at the White House, or etched into the wall of the Grand Canyon. When I had learned to read, I would be sent there. “The Unspoken Rules, please,” I would whisper to a security guard, and he would point at the wall, silently. There would be all the things I ever wanted to know, and I would finally feel like I know how to be a person.

Well. I learned to read. I politely reminded my mother of the fact several times, but she just told me she was proud of me, but no, I still could not have a pet pony. I didn’t want a pet pony; all I ever wanted was to be sent to where the Rules were.

Some time after learning to read, I had given up on the Unspoken Rules. Maybe only certain people were allowed to see them, like the president and talk show hosts. I watched TV with a careful and jealous eye. “Those people know what they’re doing,” I would observe, “They don’t stumble or say the wrong thing, they are gorgeous, they have people who like them… yes, those people have seen the Rules.”

One day I asked my sister a question. “It’s just one of the Unspoken Rules of Life,” she dropped casually, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Maybe that was it, then. Maybe the Unspoken Rules were innate, and came to you slowly as you grew. Maybe they weren’t written down at all. Maybe I was just supposed to figure them out.

I figured that once I was into my teenage years, I would wake up one day with a list in my head, telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing, and I would finally be good at being human. I would no longer feel like an inept puppet master, trying to pull the strings and make my body do and say the right thing, with no idea which string goes where or how hard to pull, and handicapped in the process by a blindfold and a broken finger.

I was still waiting until yesterday, when I stopped.